Sometimes you read a paragraph describing a book and you know you have to read it. Ninth House grabbed me long before I picked up the book with the promise of modern cults and magical intrigue.

It then lost me immediately. The first half of the book plodded along by piling up mysteries, including numerous blatant omissions of knowledge that Alex is fully aware of but we're not, and by worldbuilding in a manner just obscure enough to annoy me.

Luckily, eventually you end up catching up with Alex in terms of what the heck is going on in her life and things pick up. Most of the last half is pretty good, in spite of the numerous flashbacks and repeated red herrings. Yale's societies become their own entities, revealing themselves enough to be interesting but not so much as to become mundane. We end up with actual characters instead of walking bundles of anxiety and orneriness.

The twist in the climax is understandable but largely both unnecessary and overwrought. It ties in some plots and characters who seemed pretty much unnecessary for the rest of the book, which is a bit of a redemption of many earlier scenes, but it's just done so... blatantly. It jumps the world from secret rituals and careful intrigue to Harry vs. Voldemort and it just doesn't work great.

Ninth House had plenty of good points throughout, but it also just didn't ever fully click into place for me. In spite of that, the ending makes book 2 sounds way the hell cooler, so I'll probably read it anyways. Sigh.